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Thursday, October 10, 2013

OpEd - NY Post: A New Low

New York - The NY Post’s highly inflammatory and negative
attack titled “de Blasio praises hateful Rabbi,” published just a few hours
after the death of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, was beyond the pale, and an affront to
the Rabbi’s memory and to countless Jews who considered him their spiritual
mentor.

Furthermore,to attack a mayoral candidate for issuing a
brief statement of condolence upon a revered Rabbi’s passing, was petty and
mean spirited. Rabbi Yosef’s unparalleled achievements as the long time
spiritual leader of world Sephardic Jewry, made such a statement appropriate.

That close to one million Jews attended Rabbi Yosef’s
funeral should have warranted some level of respect and sensitivity to the
subject by the Post. Naïve? Maybe. But to contrast, even Palestinian leader,
Mahmoud Abbas, understood the loss of this spiritual giant and expressed his
condolences.

It is noteworthy that the NY Times, not always sympathetic
to Orthodox Jewish interests, showed respect for the iconic sage, writing, “As
a Sephardic Torah scholar and arbiter of Halakha, or Jewish law, he was often
described by followers as ‘the greatest of the generation’.”

What makes the Post’s nasty diatribe especially
disappointing is that it comes on the heels of last week’s Post editorial
criticizing Mayor Bloomberg’s “aggressive nannyism” in regulating an aspect of
Jewish ritual circumcision. That enlightened position, which was appropriately
acknowledged in Orthodox Jewish circles as a positive contribution to the public
debate, might have led some to believe that at long last, the Post was
transitioning to a more balanced approach towards issues of concern to
religious Jewry. Alas,the Post’s galling attack on Rabbi Yosef reminds us that
a leopard cannot change its spots. The Post’s lack of a moral compass leads one
to conclude that they are guided only by an insatiable appetite for circulation
and titillation.

The NY Post has reached a new low, and that’s really saying
something.